thats good work there , all my atempts have been rubbish, i made a glass panel and recently purchased a sander/polisher…
But my currage fails me.
Good luck with the glassing, i find it the most challenging thing about board building, but strangely the most rewarding - apart from surfing my work of course.
Nice fins JD. They look great. I’m in the process of making keels for my fish which i am yet to glass. What thickness ply did you use? Im using 9 mm (3/8") and 12 mm (1/2") and have found that using a flap disc on a small grinder i can foil the fins in no time. Also, i too had trouble with the very thin leading edge as the slightest bump or knock tended to snap little peices off the edge. I might leave the fine stuff till last after i properly foiled etc.
Nice fins JD. They look great. I’m in the process of making keels for my fish which i am yet to glass. What thickness ply did you use? Im using 9 mm (3/8") and 12 mm (1/2") and have found that using a flap disc on a small grinder i can foil the fins in no time. Also, i too had trouble with the very thin leading edge as the slightest bump or knock tended to snap little peices off the edge. I might leave the fine stuff till last after i properly foiled etc.
Good one and keep up the good work
Ado
I agree nicely done.
Here’s a tip for those fine trailing edges: instead of using one piece of ply, use two thin pieces epoxied together, with the epoxy glue line right where you want your trailing edge to be. The epoxy glue line will take a nice fine edge (provided that you have a reasonable amount of glue in there) . . . this method also works for asymmetrically double foiled fins. . .just use a thinner ply on one side than the other.
Oh, just BTW, if that’s Meranti marine ply or similar it’s quite tricky to foil . . . kind of prone to splitting and hard to do accurately, Australian Hoop pine or Paulownia is easier.
double sided tape works to that is how my shop teacher told us to make symetrical pieces. and Roy you technique could work for flat inside foils, pt the epoxy on and just don’t put on any other wood.
I was going to follow the guidelines as per Bert Burgers making wooden fins post.
No probs,
If you’re using Bert’s method, you’re on a good path - this is the technique I use and it works well.
One tip - this is in Bert’s instructions, but I’m kinda underlining it here as it is an important step:
When the first side of your fin lam is cured and you turn it over to do the other side, make sure you give the second side a good sand before laminating. This ensures that you get a good bond between the ply and the lam and also a good bond on the lam to the glass perimeter. (Don’t sand to much though, you don’t want to change the foil of the fin)
This is #1 with ply keels. I clamped 'em together and used a sanding disk in a pillar drill. My ply was thinner than 9mm though, and the first time I got lots of chips out of the leading edge So I rotated the grain 90 deg for this attempt.
Nope, I’ve only just worked out how to do the photo thing. I’ll give it a whizz later.
Forgot to say that I glassed em onto a sheet of glass with no release agent and had to smash the glass then scrape all the shards off the back of the keels with a wallpaper scraper. Harder than I thought.
